Page:Karl Radek - Proletarian Dictatorship and Terrorism - tr. Patrick Lavin (1921).djvu/39

32 whose time has come, whose domination is an historical necessity (the Jacobin bourgeoisie were in this position in 1793) and the confusion and impotence of a class which is still incapable of exercising domination and which lacks the resolution to fight for it with all the means at its disposal (the French working class of 1871 was in this condition). When Kautsky asserts that the Commune of 1871 has found a warm corner, thanks to its spirit of humanity in the hearts of all who long for the liberation of mankind, the old man mistakes his own womanish heart for the dauntless one of the proletarian. It is not because of its weakness (which he calls humanity) that the Commune has become the symbol of proletarian aspirations, but because it was the first attempt of the proletariat to seize power.

What this spirit of "humanity" is which it is pretended ruled in the Commune and which is so dear to his heart, Kautsky attempts to represent in a lifeless abstraction in which he shows savage men on the one hand and peaceful men on the other, and how at one time savagery, and at another time gentleness, gained the upper hand. We need not delay over this professorial baulderdash because Kautsky never rises above the level political twaddle, and does not even clear up in any way an historical event by showing the action of gentleness and savagery. Kautsky becomes more concrete when he asserts that democracy, which clearly shows the proportional strength of the classes, prevented them from rushing blindly into the conflict, and that Marxism has the same effect on the proletariat; and that the proletariat, thanks to the Marxist explanation, has learned that victory can only be the result of a gradual process of growth. "Socialists are always being urged to undertake, at any given moment, only such tasks as could be accomplished under the material conditions and with the relative strength of classes, which obtained at the time. If everything were done according to expert opinion it would be impossible for Socialists to fail in any undertaking or to find themselves in a desperate situation which